Anastasia (1997) Trivia
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99 free Anastasia (1997) trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Anastasia was Fox Animation Studios' first feature, a Don Bluth musical that many viewers still assume is a Disney film. This Anastasia trivia covers the voice cast, the songs by Ahrens and Flaherty, the decision to make Rasputin a lich with an albino bat, the box office battle with The Little Mermaid re-release, the historians who hated it and the 2017 Broadway adaptation. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
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Q 01Who directed and produced the 1997 animated film Anastasia?
Don Bluth and Gary Goldman
Don Bluth and Gary Goldman had walked out of Disney together in 1979 to make rival cartoons, and Fox spent more than $100 million building them a studio for this one.
Q 02How do Rasputin's demons try to kill Anya aboard the ship carrying her toward Paris?
By making her sleepwalk overboard
By making her sleepwalk overboard: a dream sent by the demons walks her to the rail in the night, and Dimitri pulls her back at the last moment.
Q 03Fox built the animation studio that made Anastasia in which Arizona city?
Phoenix
Phoenix won the studio with job-training funds and cheap loans, and about a third of its 300 artists had followed the directors over from their old studio in Dublin, Ireland.
Q 04Who voiced the adult Anya in Anastasia?
Meg Ryan
Meg Ryan hesitated over the part, so the filmmakers animated a scene to dialogue from one of her own romantic comedies and screened it for her; she signed on.
Q 05Who provided Anya's singing voice in Anastasia?
Liz Callaway
Liz Callaway only came in to record demos, hoping they might lead to some background singing, and the songwriters liked them so much that her voice stayed in the film.
Q 06Who voiced the conman Dimitri in Anastasia?
John Cusack
John Cusack spoke the part but freely admitted he couldn't sing, so stage performer Jonathan Dokuchitz took over whenever Dimitri burst into song.
Q 07Which Frasier star voiced the former nobleman Vlad in Anastasia?
Kelsey Grammer
Kelsey Grammer did what the film's two romantic leads did not: he sang his own songs, while their musical numbers were handed to Broadway voices.
Q 08Who voiced the villain Rasputin in the 1997 film Anastasia?
Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Lloyd beat Peter O'Toole to the role for a simple reason, the screenwriter recalled: children didn't know O'Toole, but they had all seen Back to the Future.
Q 09Which Simpsons voice actor played the bat Bartok in Anastasia?
Hank Azaria
Hank Azaria had the directors laughing within ten minutes of his audition, beat Martin Short to the part, and ad-libbed lines for the bat's kung-fu routine.
Q 10Who voiced the Dowager Empress Marie in the 1997 film Anastasia?
Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury crossed enemy lines for the part: six years earlier she had been a Disney voice, the singing teapot Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast.
Q 11Which Broadway legend voiced Marie's cousin Sophie in Anastasia?
Bernadette Peters
Bernadette Peters sings the film's big Paris production number herself, and her Sophie is the gatekeeper whose quiz decides whether Anya gets to meet the Empress.
Q 12Who voiced the young Anastasia's speaking lines in the 1997 film?
Kirsten Dunst
Kirsten Dunst only spoke the part: Lacey Chabert sang the child's songs, and with the adult role split the same way, four performers share one princess.
Q 13Which songwriting duo wrote the songs for Anastasia?
Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens
Q 21What does Rasputin give up in return for the power to destroy the Romanovs in Anastasia?
His soul
His soul buys him a curse and a wretched afterlife: when he drowns with the job unfinished, he is left stuck in limbo as a living corpse for the next ten years.
Q 22The 1997 film Anastasia drowns Rasputin under river ice, but how did the real Rasputin die in 1916?
Murdered by Russian nobles
Murdered by Russian nobles who feared his hold over the royal family: they shot him and dropped the body into an icy river, so the real Rasputin ended up under the ice too.
Q 23How does the young Anastasia lose her memory in the 1997 film?
She hits her head boarding a train
Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens were in a New York café when someone pitched an undead Rasputin with a bat sidekick; when they took the story to the stage, they cut both.
Q 14Which song was the first the songwriters completed, written during a heatwave?
Once Upon a December
They joked about sweating while writing winter imagery.
Q 15Which Anastasia song earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song?
Journey to the Past
Journey to the Past had the bad luck to be nominated in the year of Titanic: the Oscar went to "My Heart Will Go On".
Q 16Which R&B singer performed Anastasia's Oscar-nominated song at the 1998 ceremony?
Aaliyah
Aaliyah sang it at the Oscars because her pop version closes the film over the end credits; inside the story the song belongs to the heroine's Broadway singing voice.
Q 17Years before meeting Anya, how had Dimitri already crossed paths with the real Anastasia?
As a palace servant boy
As a palace servant boy he opened the hidden door that let the princess escape, which is how he later knows that Anya's hazy memory of that night can't have been coached.
Q 18In Anastasia's 1926, Saint Petersburg officially had which name?
Leningrad
Leningrad had been the city's name since 1924, in honour of Lenin, but the film's opening number is still called "A Rumor in St. Petersburg".
Q 19What three words are inscribed on the necklace Marie gives Anastasia?
Together in Paris
Together in Paris is the only clue the amnesiac Anya has to her past, so ten years later those three words send her across Europe to find whoever gave them to her.
Q 20Which tsar hosts the ball that opens Anastasia?
Nicholas II
Nicholas II hosts a party the film has moved: the real Romanov tercentenary was celebrated in 1913, three years before the 1916 ball that opens the story.
She hits her head boarding a train: her grandmother is hauled onto the moving carriage, the girl's hand slips, and she wakes on the platform with no idea who she is.
Q 24What does Dimitri do with the reward for finding Anastasia?
Turns it down
Turns it down: the whole con was built around that money, but by then he has fallen for the woman he meant to pass off as a princess and wants nothing for bringing her home.
Q 25What does Anya name the stray puppy she meets after leaving the orphanage?
Pooka
Pooka settles the plot before it starts: Anya, torn at a crossroads, asks for a sign, and the puppy grabs her scarf and tugs her down the road toward St. Petersburg.
Q 26How do Anastasia and Dimitri end the 1997 film?
They elope together
They elope together, leaving only a farewell letter: having crossed Europe to reclaim her title, Anastasia walks away from life as a grand duchess for a reformed conman.
Q 27How do Rasputin's minions first attack the heroes' train in Anastasia?
By overheating the engine
By overheating the engine they turn the train into a runaway, and the three passengers have to cut their carriage loose and jump before it goes over the edge.
Q 28At which Paris theater does Anya attend the ballet in Anastasia?
The Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier is where the plan falls apart: the Empress refuses to meet one more claimant, and Anya overhears that she was recruited as part of a con.
Q 29What object finally convinces Marie that Anya is her granddaughter in Anastasia?
The music box
The music box plays a lullaby that only the two of them shared, and when Anya starts to sing along, the Empress knows she has her granddaughter back.
Q 30On which Paris bridge does Anastasia's final battle with Rasputin take place?
The Pont Alexandre III
The Pont Alexandre III is family ground: it is named for Anastasia's own grandfather, the late husband of the Empress she has just been reunited with.